Seventeen-year-old Selin Ali has become the world’s champion in the discipline of trapshooting among junior women. The young athlete has grown up in a family of hunters and has practiced various types of sports. She is from the Bulgarian town of Aytos, southeast Bulgaria, and is known for her high motivation and spirit.

Radio Bulgaria contacted her just a day after coming back from championships in Italy and Germany. We asked her about the road to success?

"What I have achieved there are results that I achieve all the time during training. The actual competition, however, is much harder because there is anxiety and a lot of excitement. I am very proud to have achieved these results during such great championships. I am glad I managed to cope with all the excitement and stress."

After winning the gold medal at the ISSF World Championship Shotgun in Lonato del Garda (Italy), Selin Ali continued to compete, this time in the mixed events, together with Ivan Georgiev.

"This was not our first race together with Ivan Georgiev. Previously we have participated as a mixed pair in two or three competitions, so we are used to each other. The experience was very good. Until the last series, we did not know whether we would enter the finals and whether we would have a chance to shoot for the medals. But it turned out that the last series was crucial. That's where we did our best and we went to the finals where we competed against the Spanish team for the bronze medal. We won it with a very good lead.”

A few days after the gold and bronze medals from Italy, Selin continued with victories at the ISSF Junior World Championship in the German city of Suhl, where she won a silver medal.

Father and personal coach of the young athlete Niyazi Mehmed told us how Selin’s talent was discovered:

"It happened quite accidentally when she was 12 years old. I decided to go to the shooting range to practice before the hunting season and took her with me so she wouldn’t stay alone at home. A former competitive shooter suggested we let her try it. I tried to convince him that shooting was not for her as I had always wanted to keep her away from firearms. But she picked up the rifle and shot down 5 or 6 out of the first 7-8 clay dishes.”

That moment was decisive for Selin and her father. After it the girl continued to practice shooting and quickly started competing.

"She was 12 when she picked up a rifle for the first time. At the age of 13, she was competing at international level," Selin's father says. "At the age of 14 we participated in world championships and several international competitions, after which she became ‘Master of Sports’, which is a precedent for Bulgaria – no girls or women have achieved this success so far. At the age of fifteen she was fifth in Europe and 16th in the world in the individual discipline for girls. We continued to work hard and the results came.”

Practicing shooting is expensive as cartridges cost money and in order to become good one needs to practice a lot, at least three times a week. What's next for Selin?

"Participation in the next women's championships and eventual quota for the Tokyo Olympics next year are our goals. The Olympic Games remain the most important forum,” Selin’s father says.

As a father and personal trainer, he is a major motivator for Selin – in life and in sports:

"He is the man for whom I continue to do everything. I want to make him proud of me. I see that I have talent and I can achieve successes. As a father and daughter we have a relationship that is very difficult to break and we are very close, especially thanks to shooting. And there's no way I would give up,” 17-year-old Selin Ali says.

English: Alexander Markov